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Calls for investigation into Ryanair’s ‘dangerous landing approaches’
The International Transports Workers’ Federation has urged the Irish Government to investigate Ryanair’s landing problems.
Their call comes after reports that Martin Cullen, the Irish transport minister, has asked the government for a full briefing following a number of landing incidents.
Last month the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit issued a report on a “serious incident” involving a Ryanair plane attempting to land at Cork airport in June last year.
Reports in the Guardian said that the captain failed to perform a procedure known as a ‘go-around’ after aborting a landing. Instead he banked in a tight circle to try again minutes later, bringing the plane within 425 feet of the ground.
This followed a near-crash at Knock airport in March 2006, problem approaches at Rome in September 2005 and at Skavsta airport in Sweden in July 2004.
Ingo Marowsky, Civil Aviation Secretary of the ITF said: “We urge the government to investigate. There is a problem here that is widely known in the industry and it’s a problem that has its roots in the Ryanair operating model – not in ‘jet jockeys’ as Michael O’Leary would prefer us to think.
“We, and others, have researched Ryanair and seen just how pressured the schedules are, how tight the turnaround times, and how there appears to be a corporate culture that does not make safety its first and overriding priority.
“With the regulatory authorities taking an interest, Michael O’Leary has reacted with a clumsy attempt to shift the blame. These anomalous approaches aren’t a result of professional pilots suddenly turning into mad aerobatic stuntmen, they’re a result of flight crews being made to work too close to the edge of what is humanly possible.”
By Bev Fearis
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Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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